Prevention is better than cure

If you’re a manufacturer, you don’t need me to tell you that production downtime is bad for business. That’s logical, regardless of the industry sector in which you operate. Every second a machine or production line is down spells very bad news for that manufacturing business. If the issue is a reoccurring one, it can slow down overall throughput, delay orders, annoy customers (possibly even lose some) and potentially damage brand reputation, in the most extreme examples.

If that doesn’t sound bad enough, the actual financial losses due to machine downtime are the stuff of nightmares. In the manufacturing industry generally, the cost of downtime is reportedly around approximately $260,000 (~£205,000) per hour (according to a study by Aberdeen Research).

However, for particular sub-sectors, it’s even worse. A recent report by Senseye showed that an hour of unplanned downtime in an automotive plant cost over $2 million (~£1.6 million). What’s more, due to increased costs of energy, repairs and materials, unexpected downtime cost manufacturers at least 50 percent more in 2022 than it did between 2019-2020. “Silence is golden”, so went the song, but context is everything.

The good news is that manufacturers do not need to wait for a machine issue to arise before springing into action to remedy the problem. 

Read the full article in DPA's January 2025 issue